California can lead the way by rejecting Prop 8

TO THE REV. LAURA ROSE of the First Congregational Church in Alameda being Christian means, among other things, being open hearted.

"To be Christian, we believe, means to embrace anyone who is pushed to the margins, who is denied equality for any reason," she said.

In 2005, the national meeting of the United Church of Christ, to which Rose's congregation belongs, voted to support marriage rights for all people, opting against a gender-specific definition of marriage. "What I say to people, what Martin Luther King Jr. said to people is the only thing Jesus was extreme about is love. And love sometimes takes the form of working for justice for anyone who is denied basic human rights."

On Tuesday, Alamedans, along with the rest of California, will vote on Proposition 8, the "Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry Act." The proposition is, with the exception of the presidential contest, the most expensive item on any ballot for Nov. 4. More than $60 million has flowed to both sides of the debate from across the country. The airways are full of arguments both pro and con. The Mormon Church has actively supported the initiative, while the League of Women Voters has opposed it saying, "No person or group should suffer legal, economic or administrative discrimination."

Nearly every major California newspaper has editorialized against Prop. 8, with the Los Angeles Times editorial page calling it, "A drastic step to strip people of rights."

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The initiative would change the California Constitution in order to invalidate this summer's California Supreme Court decision that found the state had no business denying rights to same sex couples. In that decision, the court wrote, —...the California legislative and initiative measures limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples violate the state constitutional rights of same-sex couples and may not be used to preclude same-sex couples from marrying."

The arguments for Prop. 8 have ranged from the fear-based (young children will be forced to learn about same-sex marriage) to the ridiculous (if same-sex couples are allowed to marry then people will soon be able to marry their pets).

But the issue remains at its core one of civil rights. When a different-sex couple marries, they are granted many rights, including the right to visit a sick spouse in the hospital, to file joint tax returns, or to easily inherit property. These are rights that are automatic for opposite sex couples, and it's wrong to deny them to same sex couples.

What I find most perplexing about the opposition to same sex marriage rights, is the idea that opposite sex marriages are somehow threatened if two people of the same gender fall in love and marry. How is my marriage, with all the challenges and joys that come from modern life, in any way imperiled by the marriage of another couple? How is what we do in our own home — make dinner, do laundry, make love, discuss where to place the couch — in any way touched by other people doing more or less the same thing in their own homes? I find this argument mystifying.

Our nation has a history of prohibiting marriages between people of different races. What was once taboo is now part of the fabric of modern life. Some day in the future, sensible people will wonder what all the shouting over same sex marriage was about.

In 1948, the California Supreme Court was the first state court in the country to strike down a law prohibiting interracial marriage. In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated all remaining laws against interracial marriage.

Let California continue to take the lead in human rights in our nation. Vote no on Prop. 8.